TLA+ Tools

Most users of TLA+ will run the TLA+ tools
from the TLA+
Toolbox. How to download them and run them outside
the Toolbox is explained
here

The Tools

SANY Syntactic Analyzer
[show]

A parser and syntax checker for TLA+ specifications.
It catches parsing errors and some semantic errors such as
priming an expression containing primed variables.
It was written by Jean-Charles
Grégoire, David Jefferson, and Yuan Yu.

TLC Model Checker
[show]

A model checker and simulator for executable TLA+
specifications, which include most specifications written by
engineers.
It is an explicit-state model checker that can check both safety and
liveness properties. For safety checking, TLC achieves an
approximately linear speedup on modern large computers using 32 or
more cores. It can further speed-up model checking by running on
a network of computers, and provides easy deployment on cloud
systems. TLC was written by Yuan Yu and extended by Markus
Kuppe.

PlusCal Translator
[show]

A translator from the
PlusCal
algorithm language to TLA+.
It was written by Keith Marzullo and the author of this web page.

TLAPS Proof System
[show]

A system for mechanically checking proofs written in TLA+, including
proofs of the kinds of properties described
here.
It is being developed at the
Microsoft
Research–Inria Joint Centre.
See
the TLAPS home page for more information.
The first version of TLAPS was written by Kaustuv Chaudhuri.
Improvements have been made by Damien Doligez, Stephan Merz, Hernán Vanzetto, Tomer Libal, Martin Riener, and Denis Cousineau.

A program for typesetting TLA+ specifications. It is used by the
Toolbox's Produce PDF Version command to generate and display a
pdf file with a pretty-printed version of a specification.
Chapter 13 of
Specifying Systems
has some tips on formatting this version.
TLATeX can also be used outside the Toolbox to include TLA+ formulas
and PlusCal code as part of a LaTeX document.
Click
here
to find out how to run TLATeX outside the Toolbox. Here are instructions for how to include TLA+
formulas and PlusCal code in a LaTeX document. You will have to
download the tlatex.sty
package file to use TLATeX with LaTeX.

Except for the PlusCal translator and TLAPS, the tools are described
in the book
Specifying
Systems.
Documentation of the PlusCal translator
can be found here.
Some documentation of the TLAPS proof system can be
found on its web site and in the
TLA+
Hyperbook.

The current versions of the language and tools differ somewhat from the ones
described in the book. Most notably, language constructs for writing
proofs have been added to TLA+, and a number of features have
been added to TLC. All significant changes to the
tools since the book was written are described in the
document Current Versions of the
TLA+ Tools ; changes to the language are described in
this web page.
The complete current list of TLC command-line options is
here.

Known bugs in the tools are reported on the TLA+
Github
issues page.
Requests for additional features are also posted there.
Tell us about any problems or inadequacies you find with
the tools.
But please remember that we are a small number of people
trying to respond to the needs of an ever-growing number of users.